worst elements in society.
Could a more inverted scheme of things have been devised in a madhouse?

New York is by no means unique. Every city has its dance hall problem;
every small town its girl and boy problem; every country-side its
tragedy of the girl who, for relief from monotony, goes to the city and
never returns.

It is strange that nowhere, until lately, in city, town, or country, has
it occurred to any one that the community owed anything to this
insatiable thirst for joy.

Consider, for instance, the age-long indifference of the oldest of all
guardians of virtue, the Christian Church. To the demand for joy the
evangelical church has returned the stern reply: "To play cards, to go
to the theater, above all, to dance, is wicked." The Methodist Church,
for one, has this baleful theory written in its book of discipline, and
persistent efforts on the part of enlightened clergy and lay members
have utterly failed to expurgate it. The Catholic, Episcopalian, and
Lutheran churches utter no such strictures, but in effect they defend
the theory that joy, if not in itself an evil, at least is no necessity
of life.

To meet the growing social discontent, the increasing indifference to
old forms of religion, the open dissatisfaction with religious
organizations which had degenerated into clubs for rich men, there was
developed some years ago in America the "institutional church." This was
an honest effort to give to church members, and to those likely to
become church members, opportunity for social and intellectual
diversion. Parish houses and settlements were established, and these
were furnished with splendid gymnasiums, club rooms, committee rooms,
auditoriums for concerts and lectures, kitchens for cooking lessons, and
provision besides for basketry, sewing, and embroidery classes. These
are all good, and so are the numberless reading, debating, and study
clubs good, as far as they go. But what a pitifully short way they go!
They have built up congregations somewhat, but they have made not the
slightest impression on the big social problem. The reason is plain. The
appeal of the institutional church is too intellectual. It reaches only
that portion of the masses who stand least in need of social
opportunity.

To this accusation the church, man instituted and man controlled since
the beginning of the Christian Era, replies that it does all that can
be done for the uplift of humanity. That the church seems to be